The Tribune

By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Out Island Promotions Board president yesterday urged the nation to near-double the proportion of stopover visitors that make up its tourism base to 30 percent.

Emanuel Alexiou told the Board's annual general meeting (AGM) that The Bahamas needs to grow its stopover visitors, who currently account for only 18.5 percent of total tourists, because they spend significantly more per capita and have a far greater economic impact.

He said: “Cruise visitors only spend approximately $84 per landed visitor but, at last count, made up at 81.5percent of our visits. Air stopovers, who spend $2,700 per visit, accounted for only 18.5 percent of our business.

“If generating foreign currency expenditure is one of the true goals of Bahamas tourism, then the challenge for us in 2024 is the growth of our cruise visitors to air stopover ratio, changing it to at least 80/20 and eventually 70/30 - 30 percent of our business being stopover business.”

Similar sentiments were voiced by Robert Sands, the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association's (BHTA) president, who said at that body's AGM this week: "Taking into account the cruise visitors average expenditure per trip versus stopover passenger average expenditure per trip, if we converted just 10 percent of our cruise passengers to stopover passengers, we could be poised to inject into our economy over $1.5bn."

Mr Alexiou, meanwhile, said that while The Bahamas should be celebrating the milestone of welcoming over eight million for 2023 there is still much work to improve business for Family Island tourism.

He added that customer service, operational costs and the ease of conducting business must improve on the Family Islands to "unveil new growth opportunities".

“This past Monday, we announced eight million visitors to The Bahamas, but I would not be true to myself if I did not dive deeper into the way we do business and development," Mr Alexiou said.

“Yes, it certainly is cause for celebration. But we still have much work to do, especially in the areas of improving customer experience, cutting business operational costs and eliminating some of the uncertain friction of doing business in The Bahamas. And only by tracking the known challenges together, we begin to unveil the growth opportunities.”

Mr Alexiou said many Family Island operators have complained about the level of service provided by energy, telecommunications and water utilities, and face inadequate airlift due in part to the poor state of their airports.

He said: “We continue to have to and from the Family Islands, some via LPIA, especially for us southern islands, like Acklins, Crooked Island and Long Island, a need for improving general airlift. And also with the state of our Family Island airports our inability to be more aggressive in soliciting new airlift.

“The increasing cost of safe reliable, sustainable and affordable electricity, reliable Internet on the Family Islands in an online world. There is almost nothing to do any more without connectivity and Internet connectivity. The on again, off again water flows we experience on a frequent basis on the Family Islands, and the time it takes to complete an annual hotel licensing review process.”

He added that tourists have complained about the high cost of goods and ground transportation as well as slow service times and early closing times. "The feedback we receive from visitors from around the islands are the high cost of ground transportation. It's too expensive, service establishments close too early and service time is too slow," Mr Alexiou added.